Non-Native producers decide Taylor can't write 'Native enough'

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As a Native writer, there are always three questions I get asked, ad nauseam, whenever I do a lecture or a reading for a non-Native audience.

Question one: How do you feel about cultural appropriation?

My answer: About the same as I feel about land appropriation.

Question two: When you write your plays or stories, do you write for a specifically Native audience or a white audience?

My answer: I'm usually alone in my room when I write except for my dying cactus. So I guess that means I write for my dying cactus.

The final, and in my opinion, most annoying question I often get asked is: Are you a writer who happens to be Native or a Native who happens to be a writer?

I was not aware there had to be a difference. I was always under the assumption that the two could be and often were synonymous. But evidently I am in error. Over the past few years of working as a professional writer, I have slowly begun to understand the rules of participation in the television and prose industry in terms of this difference.

It seems there is a double standard. Surprise, surprise.

It is not uncommon, though deemed politically incorrect for white writers to write stories about Native people quite freely, particularly for television.

Notice the many People of Pallor script credits on such shows as North of 60 (which, granted, does have one talented Native writer), Northern Exposure (I guess I'll have to move north since it seems that's where all the Native people live), movies like Where The Spirit Lives or Dance Me Outside.

All these shows have strong, identifiable Native characters created by non-Natives.

However, should one of us Native writers want to explore the untrodden world outside the Aboriginal literary ghetto, immediately the fences appear and opportunities dry up.

Evidently, the powers that be out there in the big, cruel world have very specific ideas of what a Native writer can and can't do.

Only recently, a friend of mine submitted a story to a new CBC anthology series in development, about Native people, called The Four Directions. His story outline was soon returned with an explanation that the producers thought the story wasn't "Native enough" for their purposes.

I myself submitted a story to the producers. During our first story meeting, I received a stirring and heartfelt lecture about how they, the producers, were determined to present the Native voice as authentically and accurately as possible and about how committed they were to allowing us Native types the chance to tell our stories our way.

They then asked if I could cut the first eight pages of my 27-pages script. Oddly enough, they seemed puzzled by my sudden burst of laughter.

I once wrote an episode of Street Legal and I accidentally caught a glimpse of a memo from the producer to a story editor to rewrite the dialogue of my Native Elder to "make him more Indian."

I guess as a Native person, I don't know how real "Indians" talk. Bummer. These are just a few examples of the battle Native writers often face.

I hereby put the question to these people who judge our stories: I personally would like to know by what set of qualifications these people examine Native stories. Is there an Aboriginal Suitability Quotient posted somewhere? If there is, I would love the opportunity to learn more about how I should write as a Native person.

For a story to be "Native enough," must there be a birch bark or buckskin quota? Perhaps there are supposed to be vast roaming herds of moose flowing past the screen?

Oh, geez, I guess I'm not Native enough, I momentarily forgot, moose don't herd, they just hang out with flying squirrels that have their own cartoon show.

Or maybe I's got be good writer like dem Indians whats W.P. Kinsella writes about. It no sound like any Indian I ever hears but what the hell, I maybe win bunch of awards. On second thought, you never mind. I get headache trying to write like this.

So what's a writer to do? Damned if he does, daned is he doesn't.

And what if I want to write stories about non-Native people? It's possible, but will I be given a chance?

I"m sure I could do it. I've learned enough about how white people really live from watching all those episodes of Married With children and Baywatch.

This all brings us back to that most annoying question. Am I a writer who happens to be Native or a Native that happens to be a writer?

Do I have a choice? I think next time I get asked that question, I'll ask the equally deep and important question" "Is a zebra black with white stripes, or white with black stripes?"

Just watch. They'll make that into a racial question.